Sun,Sun and More Sun and a Walk in the Forest

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Gosh, have we been so lucky on this holiday as except for the overcast days in Golden Bay it has virtually been sunny every day and we are now well into week 3 of the trip.

You would think that with the sun shining the way it is outside that we would be up and about early and getting in a couple of planned forest walks.

But with everything we wanted to do close by we indulged with a little bit more of bed time with the curtains pulled open of course so we could enjoy all that sunshine.

With breakfast eventually out of the way and the motel proprietor taking over the clothes washing duties using their household machine as the motel one needed fixing, we set off north up SH67 prepared for a few hours on 2 different trails adjacent to each other with what turned out to be some remarkable scenery.

The Karamea township was quiet this morning except for a few locals at the 4 Square shop and a small handful of people, probably tourists like us, having a coffee at the local café where we picked up a sandwich to sustain us at lunchtime along with our fruit and chocolate.

Since the closure of the Heaphy Track due to storm damage late last year when 2 significant and important bridges were damaged beyond repair, the area hasn’t seen the usual number of walkers/tourists who come to either start the track here or finish it having walked from Golden Bay.

SH67 would take us all the way to the end of the highway and start of the Heaphy Track if we stayed with that road.However, we turned right towards the nearby hills and mountains further behind on Mccallums Mill Road which although unsealed had a good surface to be able to travel comfortably at 35/40kph except on the tighter corners were there some corrugations.

We had no idea where we were going to end up as we hadn’t looked at Google Maps before we left the motel but all we could see ahead of us was land in the form of hills steadily rising to the mountains in the distance. We did know that it was 18km from the SH67 to where the first trail started.

Now if that distance had been straight we would have been up in the mountains.However,we figured out that after you took off all the twists and turns that we took as the kilometres to go counted down that the distance from the main road to our destination was probably only about 4 or 5 km ‘as the crow flies’.

There was thing for sure though we were definitely in a heavy forested area and we hadn’t seen another car on the road in the total 18km travelled which was just as well as some of the corners were tight and meeting any of the 4 wheel drives in the car park at the start of the trail would have been an ‘interesting’ experience!

We must say at this point that Dept of Conservation have done a wonderful job with a brand new flush toilet block, a couple of large shelters with tables to have a cuppa or lunch and detailed presentation with pictures of the history of this area from early European times through the logging of the native trees to the 1960’s when felling ceased. The last firm that logged here was McCallums, hence the name of the road.

As we prepared to take the trail to the main attraction, the Oparara limestone arch, a young French sounding woman from a contracting firm repairing some damage to a track let us know that she was just about to close that trail as they were expecting a helicopter moving crushed rock to be in the area for the next couple of hours.

So we took the other trail first to the Mirror Tarn and the Moria Arch which would take us away from where the helicopter would be operating.

Again we must congratulate DOC for the construction of the easy walking trail through the regenerating native forest. Here and there you could make out very tall rimus that were either not big enough to be felled back in the 1960’s or simply missed by the logging firm all amidst smaller native trees and ferns etc..

It was great to see native forest regenerating in this way and gave us an insight to what it would have been like in early European times.

Coming upon the Mirror Tarn as you do by stepping into a clearing is a wonderful surprise especially on such a still and sunny day where even in the late morning there were excellent reflections on the lake surface.

Heading onto the second attraction on the trail we came across a couple with a guide. Other than the fact that you might not want to bring your own car on the forest road into the park area it was hard to think why you wouldn’t do the walk on your own. However it was keeping a local tourist company working while there are no overseas tourists around.

The arch which is 8metres high, 46 metres long and 28 metres wide is the smallest of the 3 arches in the locality. It was only named in 1984 and draws its name from Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings ‘not that any of the movie was filmed here. You can walk through it but we weren’t sure we had sturdy enough footwear to take it on especially given that the centre of the arch would have been quite dark.

By the time we got back to the car park we had covered 3.8km and were ready for lunch and then onto the trail to the largest of the 3 arches which was now open after the helicopter being in the area.

This time we set off on the left hand side of the road for the 2km return trail to what is reputed to be the largest arch in Australasia. The track followed the brown stained water of the Oparara River. The tea coloured appearance is due to natural organic tannins released by some of the tree and plant species close to the river and because it is slow flowing the brown colour is more dominant.

Ahead of us we could hear the sound of machinery which turned out to be from a small digger and a hand driven compacter that the contractors had somehow got into the forest, perhaps by helicopter, because any other method would just not work given that the part of the track they were replacing was because the original track had been washed away from slips and the temporary replacement track was uneven and rough.

The original track approaching the arch had also been damaged and now you approach the arch from higher up which probably lessened the impact of the massive opening into the ‘cave like interior’ which was tall enough to fit a multi storied house into. The length of the cave would take 2 ½ Jumbo jets wing tip to wing tip.

With the original trail to the entrance down at river level closed because of damage we obeyed the sign at the upper height we were at not to enter the cave as that would be dangerous. Not that we were wearing footwear suitable for clambering over stalagmites’ etc.

We stood in awe at the size of this natural wonder and were pleased for ourselves that the closure of the Heaphy Track was keeping tourists and other walkers away from the area which we had virtually to ourselves other than a young couple who had got there ahead of us. She could never have ventured further in her slides which looked totally out of place for wearing in the forest.

It had been an awesome day on 2 different trails and we felt easy in the assumption that given the time of the afternoon that heading back on the twisting and turning road to SH67 shouldn’t result in us meeting anyone coming out at that time of the day to start to walk in the forest.

Dinner was at the Karamea Hotel renowned for its whitebait patties which Gretchen had while I had a traditional Irish stew with heaps of meat and potato in a hollowed out loaf of round bread.

We tried for the sunset again but gave up when the sun disappeared from our sight and we realised that you would really have to be down at the beach to get the best chance of seeing the sun sink into the ocean without anything in your vision.

More walks even closer to the motel in and around the township are planned for tomorrow when the forecast weather again is sun, sun and more sun.

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